No Platitudes

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

August 5, 2010

One of the great things about life's little disasters is they have a
capacity to be your teachers - if you can muster the
presence
to allow them to be ie if you can stay open to them.

It's been years now since I worked through a harrowing divorce. Those
who know, know any divorce, especially if you're the unwilling party,
can be harrowing. During the time I was very, very sad - and that was
when I was having a good day. The sadness wasn't so much
for what was lost nor for the cost. And a lot was lost and it cost a
lot. Rather, the sadness came from a sense of being powerless to do
anything about it other than simply ride it out.

At times it felt so bad I was afraid I would die. Then things got worse
and I was afraid I wouldn't die.

My well intentioned friends would say things like "Laurence, this
too shall pass ..." which sure enough (years later) turned
out to be true. But at the time during the heat of the experience, it
and things like it only landed as platitudes. Platitudes are the kind
of pithy, significantly wise sayings you find in chinese
fortune cookies which mean nothing really in pragmatic terms even
though they supposedly come from a good place. They don't, in and of
themselves, leverage transformation. Somehow knowing "this too shall
pass" wasn't enough and made no difference. Somehow it made no
difference visualizing or looking forward to a hot shower
when my life was being sucked under and drowning in mud.

Gradually (after nothing else worked) I realized the best position to
get into and be in with regard to shifting my life was confronting the
truth: that things were horrible - no whitewashing allowed. That was
the first step toward healing:
going through it.
I knew I wanted to get my hands back on the reins of my life and feel
good about my life again. I started confronting the enormity of what I
had to shift - big time. I started confronting it head
on. I started taking stock of it all and looking at
inventing a new future worth
living into.
But not
inventing a new future worth
living into
as a whitewash nor as a platitude nor as wanting to change anything.
Rather,
inventing a new future worth
living into
coming from telling the white knuckled truth unflinchingly
of what was going on at the time.

When my friends asked me how they could assist, what they could do for
me, what they could give me, what I wanted and needed, I would say
"Listening, please, and conversation - but noplatitudes.".

I got something profound during this time. I got I can't whitewash what
I go through and what it feels like when things are horrible. And believe
me, I tried. Man! Did I try ... No amount of
platitudes, no amount of sugar, no amount of sweetness changed anything
although God knows I was grateful for them. Rather, what
worked for me,
where the rubber met the
road
was taking stock of exactly the way things are and exactly the way
things aren't. Then from there, inventing a new possibility for myself
and my life.